Pros And Cons Of HPV Vaccine

Social, Ethical, and Economical Reasons Why the HPV Vaccine Should Not Be Mandated

Marina M. Shenouda

The University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg

Abstract This paper grapples with the social, economic, and ethical reasons why the HPV vaccine should not be mandated. Many individuals are in monogamous relationships, or plan to be (e.g. certain types of religious and spiritual people) and will never come into contact with the virus. Therefore, there is no purpose for vaccinating them. Additionally, there are many other illnesses that are more easily contracted, (ex. the flu) and vaccines for these illnesses are not mandated. Furthermore, the proposed idea requires the vaccination for an infection which

Not all individuals have medical degrees, and thus cannot properly understand the best course of treatment. Oftentimes, doctors are scary, using large words, and telling patients that surgery is a required course of action. In this case, the patient can be likened to a child, and the doctor like the parent. A child understands to the most of his ability but cannot understand as much his parent, which is why parents tend to make decisions for their children. Therefore, should doctors make decisions for their patients? This thin line of whether patients should make decisions for themselves or not is where the difference between autonomy and beneficence must be considered. While autonomy is the patient’s ability to make decisions for himself, beneficence is when the doctor must decide what is best for the patient. Ultimately, as long as a patient is of sound mind, then autonomy overrules beneficence. Although the physician may not agree with the patient’s choices, the physician must respect this individual while telling the individual that they do not recommend this course of action. The physician must keep reminding the patient this to ensure that the physician has done his job to the best of his ability, and that the patient understands the risks and that he are one hundred percent sure of his decision (Autonomy vs. Beneficence, 2008). Thus, if a patient is legally allowed to deny life support based on his decision-making

A common airborne illness, the influenza (flu), hospitalizes roughly 200,000 people each year (How Flu Spreads, 2014). The flu vaccine, while it is available to be administered annually, is not consistently mandatory, even though this illness is easily spread through pathogenic microbes that are essentially everywhere; doorknobs, public restrooms, public transportation. HPV is not airborne, it is only contracted when one comes in contact with infected skin on another person and is the cause of roughly 33,160 cases of cancer annually (HPV Associated Cancers, 2014). If a vaccine for an airborne illness that hospitalizes 200,000 people annually is not persistently mandated, then there is simply no reason for the HPV vaccine to be mandated. In fact, if the CDC were to start mandating vaccines, it would be imperative to begin with the mandating of more pressing and contagious illnesses; the flu and other airborne illnesses are